BY THE MIDDLE of May, Amanda knew that she was going to have a baby. It had been conceived on that strange and violent night of transition when she and Dart drove back from El Castillo to Lodestone. Conceived because both of them had felt the futility of words to break down the wall between them.
They had lain together under the stars, and for a little time had known respite from their separate clamors, united in the rapture that looks neither forward nor back but exists only for itself. But afterwards there had again been many silences between them. Neither of them mentioned the visit to El Castillo, they tried to treat it as though it had not happened, and picked up their joint life where it had been interrupted. Dart, especially, wiped the whole incident from his mind, disliking memory of the confused hurt and cold anger he had felt during those days of their separation. But there was a cloud on their relation, and for Amanda too, except that another factor temporarily dissipated it.
Amanda’s recognition of her pregnancy, after initial dismay—for they had certainly not meant to have children yet—had brought a flood of joy and pride. She had wanted to tell everyone, to boast about it. She told Tessie Rubrick and basked in that little woman’s hearty congratulations. While she was buying stewing lamb in the General Store she told Pearl Pottner, and was unperturbed by Pearl’s shocked silence. She would even have told Mrs. Mablett, except that Lydia had been deeply affronted by Amanda’s non-appearance for her party on the Friday night that Amanda had gone to El Castillo. Amanda’s tardy stammered excuses proffered when they met in the store in no way thawed Lydia, who received them with frosty disdain.
“One positively feels sorry for Mr. Dartland,” she told her friend Pearl. “One can see how she embarrasses him.” Dart had attended the Mablett party alone though only for a short time. He had spoken little and made no trouble.
Pearl passed on Amanda’s extraordinary confidence about her condition and the ladies indulged in head-shaking, also in mental arithmetic.
“When did she say it would be?” asked Lydia.
“January.”
They exchanged a long thoughtful look. There had been plenty of speculation about Amanda’s sudden unexplained disappearance.
“Of course, she was only gone ten days or so,” said Pearl reluctantly. After a moment she added, “D’you suppose she’ll have Doctor Slater?”
Lydia nodded. “Yes, that’s another thing. They’ve seen plenty of each other—those two. I don’t mean anything wrong exactly, but all I can say is I feel sorry for Mr. Dartland.”
“How’s he doing up at the mine?”
“Toned down,” said Lydia with satisfaction. “Luther feels that Mr. Tyson gave him a good talking-to. I expect that girl was most of the trouble anyway. Egging him on. Now he’s learned better.”
“Did you notice how much lighter her hair is, since she came back? If I ever caught Pearline peroxiding her hair, I’d tan her backside, old as she is. That Dartland girl acts like a tart".
Amanda did not know the full extent of her continuing unpopularity with Lodestone’s leading matrons but the exaltation of her earlier pregnancy gradually faded. She began to suffer from morning sickness, and from vague aches and fears. Dart was kind, he spared her all the heavy work that he could, but he was also matter-of-fact about her condition. He was glad that they were having a child and was reasonably sympathetic with her mounting discomforts, but after all it was a natural process and one which she must endure alone.
Somewhat to his surprise he found that Hugh did not entirely agree with him.
One late July afternoon when Dart was driving down from the mine, he met Hugh on the road near the ghost town and offered him a lift.
“Yes,” said Hugh climbing into the car, “but don’t start off yet. I.want to talk to you about Andy.”
“Why? Is there anything wrong?” Dart looked anxiously at his friend.
“No. Not now anyway.” Hugh leaned back and crossed his legs. Both men lit cigarettes. “But I’m wondering if you’ve thought about where she’s to go for her confinement.”
Dart was startled. Like most men he had only the haziest idea of obstetrics, and for him these were colored by memories of births in the Apache rancheria during his boyhood. He remembered no fuss, no special commotion. He had naturally known little about it, for Apache women were intensely modest, but all had been conducted with quiet dignity.
“Well, but isn’t she going to stay here?” he asked. “Aren’t you going to do the job yourself?”
Hugh smiled. He was fond of Dart who was the only person in the world for whom he felt respect. And in consequence Hugh usually showed a better side to Dart than to anyone else. “You forget that I get very drunk sometimes,” he said. “Most husbands wouldn’t consider me the ideal obstetrician.”
“You wouldn’t get drunk at a time like that.”
“Probably not, if I were blessed with foreknowledge of the female glandular system. You don’t expect me to keep sober for weeks waiting around for Andy, do you?” He puffed on his cigarette and added, “But it isn’t that. She’s going to have a difficult birth, measurements doubtful. Might even be a Caesarean. I can’t do that here, drunk or sober. She’ll have to go to a decent hospital in plenty of time. I’d have said Ray, except it’s shut down now along with the mine and the smelter. I guess it’ll have to be Tucson.”
“Oh,” said Dart. He stared frowning at the distant mountains. “I didn’t realize she was—was delicate.”
“Not delicate. But she’s not as tough as you. Few people are.” Hugh looked down at his own slack belly, at the slight tremor of his hands. He looked at Dart, lean as a panther, always in control of his body which never betrayed inner disquiet by twitching or nervous mannerisms. Integrated, Dart was, as nearly free from ambivalence as any human could be.
“You think I lack sympathy?” asked Dart smiling faintly.
“I think that feeling no need for it yourself, it’s hard for you to understand the anguish of neurotic drives, of uncertainty—of just plain loneliness.”
Dart was silent, weighing the merits of this criticism. He remembered Amanda’s broken voice in the hallway outside the ballroom before Merrill interrupted them. “Don’t you see how hard they’re searching for something?—Just because you’re strong and real, you mustn’t be so harsh.” He did not mean to be harsh, but he was puzzled. What illusion were they all pursuing? Foxfire, he thought or the dancing will-o’-the-wisp, the something always ahead and never here. What merit was there in so futile a waste of effort? He brought his thoughts back to the immediate problem Hugh had posed.
“Obviously, in view of what you tell me, we must make arrangements for Andy in Tucson. I’ll get the money somehow.”
“Yes. That’s the next thing. You should allow at least three hundred. How’ll you do it? Borrow from her family?”
Dart’s mouth tightened. “No.” No personal loans again of any kind, and certainly not from Amanda’s family. He had just about paid back the two hundred dollars Mr. Tyson had lent him for the wedding trip, and released from the embarrassment of being under obligations, he had made up his mind to tackle the manager again on the subject of the blind cross-cut in the old Shamrock. They’d been coasting long enough.
“No collateral I suppose for a bank loan?” asked Hugh.
“No. I tried that before. But we can manage. Save from my salary what we’ve been paying back to Tyson, it’ll be just the same.”
“Andy’s been counting on that little extra to spruce up the shack, build a room on for the baby,” said Hugh.
“I know and I’m sorry. It can’t be helped.”
“Money doesn’t mean a thing to you.” Hugh turned on Dart in sudden fury. “All you want is four walls and some food. You ask a hell of a lot of Andy! Brought up the way she was! I’m amazed the girl came back to you.”
Dart was astonished at the violence of Hugh’s tone, by the sudden clenching of his hands. He stared at his friend and answered mildly, “That’s true, but Andy isn’t being asked to endure anything worse than nine tenths of the population endures. And it won’t last forever. I’m a competent mining engineer. I’ll work up in time.—What’s the matter with you, anyway?” he added smiling. “You’re not in love with Andy, are you?”
Hugh exhaled his’breath, his hands unclenched. “No,” he said. “No. But I had a wife once who couldn’t take it, who didn’t care to wait around until I ‘worked up in time.’ And she’s made a damn good thing of her life without me, too. She’s famous and she’s rich as hell.”
“Oh—” said Dart, enlightened and embarrassed. “I see.”
He still wants her, he thought. And this seemed strange to Dart. Who would want a wife who preferred other things—or other men? Surely if Amanda had decided to marry Tim Merrill, if she had chosen the glittering frothy type of life which had obviously attracted her so strongly, he would have cut her from him without hesitation. He would have felt great pain, certainly. He had felt pain during the days of their estrangement. But he thought that he would not have allowed himself to yearn for her, or lament her going. One did not punish the straying wife as the Apache used to but one could expunge her from one’s life. One gave and received freely when there was mutual love, but surely emotional dependence on another human being was a weak and shameful thing.
“Will you start up this God-damn piece of junk,” shouted Hugh suddenly. “I haven’t got all day!” He had exposed himself to Dart as he never had to anyone, and the immediate reaction was rage towards the listener. “Run me down to the ‘Laundry,’ I want a drink. I suppose you’re too damn holy to have one; anyway you better go back to Andy. She gets lonely.” “I know she does. I hoped maybe she’d find a friend in Calise Cunningham, but it didn’t jell.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake—of all the screwy ideas! Of course it didn’t jell. You’re so simple you seem complex, and the hell with all your little problems. You can God-almighty yourself out of them, any way you like!”
Dart did not answer. He had seen these sudden shifts of mood in Hugh before, though he had never seen the green eyes spark with so much anger, nor heard directed at him quite such a shrill edge in the voice. Was it dope, too? he thought, after he had dropped Hugh at the saloon, had the pupils in those suddenly vicious eyes been unduly contracted? He sighed and stopped the car at the dusty little path before his home.
Dart told Amanda a softened version of Hugh’s suggestion about the hospital and she expressed gratitude and relief. “I was sort of dreading to have the baby here. I guess Hugh’d be all right, but Maria’s such a bitch, and the hospital—well ... I do want our baby to be comfortable!” She smiled at Dart. It was one of her good days. Only a little nausea this morning after breakfast, and hardly any headache. “How soon can we get at the room for him here? I’ve figured it all out. There’s just space enough next to the closet, maybe eight feet, then push it out ten anyway, big enough for a crib, and play pen, bathinette, everything perfect for young Jonathan.”
Dart, true to his usual facing of facts, started to speak and then checked himself. “Sounds fine,” he said cheerfully, and began pumping water into the sink.
“But when can we start? This month’ll pay up Tyson, won’t it?”
“Uh-uhn,” he said. “Andy, where’s the soap?”
“I don’t know,” she answered slowly, watching him, “I guess it’s in the saucepan, I melted some for shampoo. Dart—what is it—won’t we have more money when the loan’s paid?”
“Sure. Thirty-five dollars a month more.”
“Well, then we can buy lumber and paint—you were going to build it yourself—Oh, I see.” She sat down on a kitchen chair, staring at the linoleum pattern on the floor. “We have to save for this Tucson business. Then I’d better stay here, it’s free.”
“Hugh says that wouldn’t be very wise,” said Dart gently. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll work out.”
Work out how? she thought. Mother? But Mrs. Lawrence had no money to spare. Jean and George? Never. Anyway we ought to be able to manage a thing like this ourselves, without skimping on the baby. She looked at the wall space she had measured, she thought of the bright sunny nursery she had planned.
“There’s always the Chinaman,” she said angrily. “Raise something on that dressing case. Too bad my pearls are fake.” “You wouldn’t get ten bucks on the dressing case from that old yellow-belly,” said Dart. “Andy, trust me. We’ll have to save now, but I’ll do the very best I can. I have a plan and January’s quite a way off.”
“You’re not counting on a raise? Not with depression and the mine just hanging on—I do know that much.”
“Things change. The price of gold is rising, and I’ve made a careful study of the outcrops around the Shamrock shaft, I’m quite certain——”
She had heard only one word of this, and she jumped to her feet and interrupted him sharply. “Gold. Yes, Dart. I know you won’t like this but I honestly don’t care if you get mad or not. Because I’m going to have things right for the baby.”
“What in the world are you talking about?” He gazed in some alarm at her flushed face and determined eyes.
“I’m talking about that lost mine. The Pueblo Encantado. I want you to go and hunt for it. Right now. This summer.”
“My dear child, you’re crazy.”
“I’m not. I’m serious, and you better be. You’ve no right to sneer at any chance for us to get money. I believe in that mine. I know there’s gold there, something worthwhile, anyway.” She didn’t know how this certainty had come to her, but during the dormant period since Saba’s death and the visit to El Castillo the thought of the mine had been germinating. It now sprang forth in full bloom, a flower of beckoning light, its perfume infinitely seductive.
“Andy, for Pete’s sake—” Dart drew up the other chair and sat down. “We went through all this once. I thought you’d forgotten all about it.”
“I haven’t,” she said staring at him defiantly. “I made tracings, I copied your father’s notes. I got a map. The Mazatzal wilderness area isn’t so far from here. You’ve got to go and search. Oh, lord—if I could only do it myself, I’d be off like a shot. As it is you go, right away.”
The utter unreason of this silenced Dart for a moment, and because of her condition, and the air she had of an embattled kitten scratching out blindly at a shadow, he was not moved to anger at her persistence as he had been the other time, nor even at her duplicity in copying the papers. He made one more attempt at reasoning with her.
“Andy—leaving everything else aside, I can’t take time off to go rambling around the mountains on a wild-goose chase. I have a job, my dear. I’d lose that job and serve me right.—And another thing—I’d have to hire a pack mule, get camping equipment, provisions—all cost money.”
“You could quit your job. They’d give you two weeks severance pay. Mr. Tyson likes you.”
“That’s utter nonsense.” Dart got up and poured coffee into a cup. “Here, drink this, and stop being a silly baby. I’m going to put you to bed.”
She pushed the cup aside. “In other words you won’t do it.” “No,” said Dart. “I won’t do it.”
All that night she lay stiff and unyielding beside him. Like a trapped animal her mind scurried here and there in panicky dashes. She was not so foolish that she could not see the logic in Dart’s position, but stronger than any common sense was her conviction. The cage would open, the miraculous, the blissful escape to freedom was there for the taking, but how? Who else could help her? There was nobody she could trust. Nobody but Hugh—an unpredictable and slender prop indeed. But better than nothing, even if he laughed, even if he subjected the bright beckoning flower to a blast of scorn, it would be a release to talk. Since she could not talk to Dart.
Dart spent no sleepless hours, in his mind there were no panic scurryings. He dismissed Amanda’s aberration as a transient symptom but he proposed to act now in the only possible way that might alleviate the rational part of her distress. He would work harder than ever for the success of the mine and he would go to Tyson again in the morning.
The next day was the beginning of a heat wave. Lodestone, hot enough on normal days, awoke to a dry baking heat, and a lurid stillness in the air like the inside of an oven.
Dart got his own breakfast and left a listless and silent Amanda in bed, a prey to racking nausea every time she lifted her head.
“I hate to leave you like this,” he said. “Do you want me to see if Tessie Rubrick’ll sit with you a while?”
She shook her head. “It’ll pass. It always does.” She spoke coldly, keeping her eyes shut.
Dart hesitated, he kissed her quickly then turned and left for work.
On this morning he went down on shift with the men to the thousand-foot level, the deepest part of the mine. It was as yet almost undeveloped. They had just finished the station, and were about to blast a cross-cut towards the feeble and elusive Plymouth vein. Tiger Burton, the shift boss, went down in the cage with Dart, and as usual answered Dart’s questions and listened to Dart’s opinions saying, “Yes, sir. Very true, Mr. Dartland,” the paragon of meek acquiescence. To be sure, he never raised his eyes above Dart’s shirt but as there was nearly a foot’s difference in their height, that was not surprising. Dart had always found the man too negative to provoke any feeling of like or dislike. Burton was simply an efficient little machine, but this morning while they stood jammed into the plunging cage together, Dart was conscious of a faint repulsion. The man had a stink, thought Dart, his nostrils quivering, not ordinary sweat and dirt stink, but an acrid odor—like a den of baby rattlers he had once discovered in the Natanes Mountains on the reservation. Maybe, Dart thought, amused, that was why Cleve had taken such a scunner to the man. The Apache nose was very sensitive to certain odors.
As they stepped out of the cage at the lowest level, Dart waited until the crew had gone on ahead and asked on impulse, “Whatever was the trouble between you and the Apache boys anyway?”
Tiger cocked his head, beneath the shadow of his hard hat his little eyes gleamed and then shifted. “No trouble at all, Mr. Dartland. They just took a notion to quit. You know how they are—slippery as eels—oh, pardon, I forgot.”
“Forgot what?” Dart snapped, annoyed by the soft hissing voice.
Tiger scratched a minute piece of mica from the rock wall beside him with his finger nail. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it, sir—I forgot—I better get to the face now, them drillers’ll never lift a finger until I make ’em.”
“Wait a minute,” said Dart. “There isn’t any secret about my Apache blood, and I’m not in the least ashamed of it. That clear?”
“Yes, sir,” said Tiger—moving away. Something in the obsequious gliding motion provoked Dart’s rare anger. “For that matter, I’ve heard you have Mexican blood and do make a secret of it.” He bent his head so that the light of his carbide lamp shot down full on the meager figure in front of him. The face was averted, but Dart thought he saw a stiffening, an involuntary sideways jerk of the head, and his anger vanished, partly dissipated by the tolerance of a big man for a small one. This cringing gliding little creature was not fair target. “But that’s your own business,” he added cheerfully. “Go on to your drillers. I just want to have a look at the timbering we did yesterday.”
He did not see the look that Tiger gave him from under the hooded lids. He could not know that the shift boss’s palms were wringing wet, and that in the tortured brain the long-smoldering hatred had burst into a blaze of revenge. “I’ll get him for that crack—” The words screamed like whistles through Tiger’s head, their clamor so shrill that when he was out of Dart’s sight he sank down on a pile of lagging unable to walk on. He had long been awaiting opportunity, but now at last under the impetus of this new fury, a plan sprang forth crystallized. Nor did caution desert him, the devious contrivances which had let him out from the slums of Nogales, a nameless Mexican bastard whose mother had been raped and killed by Geronimo’s band. He had slowly forged himself a new personality, as he made himself a new name and nationality. Not again would he let himself be betrayed by the desperate sweetness of blood-lust and outward revenge as he had been in his younger days. This time he would be canny, because this time it would not be a senseless killing, there was a further object to be gained. Ambition. Promotion. And as he perfected details of his plan his chest swelled with a voluptuous pleasure. Smarter than any of them. The little greaser bastard, smarter than any of them with their college degrees and their patronizing contempt. Next week, he thought, when I’ll be on night shift, they’ll be blasting down here. The hoist.... Take care of the hoist man, Bill Riley—the thermos full of coffee—that was easy. Half an hour would do it, less.
He rose from the pile of lagging, and walked to the rock face where the drillers had finally started the holes for the morning’s blast. They’d just be starting the cross-cut next Monday. He looked back toward the shaft station—not more than a dozen feet away. Good.
Dart waited until eleven o’clock, inspecting work in various parts of the mine, then from the 700 level he signaled the hoistman and returned to daylight. He knew from experience that this would be the best time to find Mr. Tyson. The manager, however, had not come to the mine office that morning. A clerk said that he’d heard the old man was sick again.
Dart sighed, hung up his hard hat and washed his hands in the change house, then swung down the path which led into the canyon by the mill and up the other side to the six-room frame bungalow where Tyson lived.
The house sat in a neat desert garden; chollas and bisnagas, and hedgehog cacti all planted in symmetrical formations and outlined with brilliant rock specimens. There was an anemic orange tree and window pots of geraniums. All these were the special charge of Manuel, the Filipino houseboy.
Manuel appeared in answer to Dart’s ring, and his greeting was uncordial. “Mr. Tyson not see nobody. He resting. Go ’way pliss.”
“Is he really sick?” demurred Dart. “I don’t want to bother him, but I would like to see him a minute.”
“Go ’way pliss.” The houseboy guarded his master with an obstinate tyranny, and Dart would have been defeated by this except that a voice was raised from the bedroom. “Who is it, Manuel?”
Dart pushed past the Filipino and walked to the open door. “It’s me, Mr. Tyson. I’m sorry you’re sick again. I just wanted a word.”
The old man sat in his wheel chair by a table on which were spread out a quantity of broken sherds, pottery fragments dug from the prehistoric Indian village down the canyon. He fondled a piece of glazed, red on buff, Hohokam painted ware in his thin veined hand. He looked up slowly, and Dart saw the effort he made to pull himself back from this hobby which usurped most of his waning energy.
“Hello, Dartland,” he said in a faraway voice; then in a brisker tone with a shade of embarrassment, “nothing wrong on the hill, I hope?”
“No, sir. Nothing special.” Dart hesitated, checked by respect and the old man’s obvious frailty. “But I did hope you might feel up to going underground soon, down in the Shamrock, you remember we talked about it some months ago.”
Tyson nodded, he put the sherd down reluctantly. He turned on Dart the friendly smile that had kindled the loyalty of manv a man. “Of course. You’ve got some sort of hunch about the old vein, you want to jam through a cross-cut.”
“It’s more than a hunch, really, sir. If you could get down there you’d see too. Look, I made a map.” He pulled it from his pocket, pointing with his pencil—slickensides, the direction of the drift, the fault here not there as the old engineers had said, a hidden outcrop aboveground beneath a thicket of cactus.
Tyson listened, but his eyes strayed to his specimens. The exhaustion which plagued him became intensified by all this youth and energy. Eager young men with ideas—yes, that was fine. I used to test them all out unless they were too crackpot, but now it doesn’t seem worth-while. We’re getting by somehow—why doesn’t he leave me alone.
“You better tell Mablett about it,” he said vaguely. “See what he thinks. That’s the proper thing to do.”
“But Mr. Tyson—” Dart burst out in dismay, then he lowered his voice. “You know Mablett won’t listen to me. He doesn’t have any knowledge of geology, either, but if he did, he wouldn’t see what I asked him to. You know that, sir. Don’t you remember we talked about it before? You asked me not to cross Mablett in any way for a while, and I haven’t, though I’ve seen a lot of things that could be bettered. Don’t you'remember?”
Tyson frowned, his bluish lips tightened. “Of course I remember! I’m not doddering yet. And that’s why we’ve had some peace at the mine lately. You’re learning to co-operate.”
Dart reddened and swallowed. “You’ve been good to me,” he said. “I don’t need to tell you how I appreciated that loan...”
“My dear boy”—the manager raised his hand—“I like to help my young men—plenty helped me. Now I’ll get down to look at your precious cross-cut one of these days, but I’m very tired now and——”
“I know, sir. I’m sorry. Never mind the cross-cut, but there is one thing I’ve got to say”—he spoke desperately against the coldness on the transparent face—“it’s a matter of mine safety, or I wouldn’t bother you...”
“Well...?”
“There’s no telephone connected down to the new 1000-foot level. Mablett won’t okay the order for more cable.”
Tyson made a brushing-away motion with his outstretched hand. “He’s doubtless and very properly cutting costs this month. You don’t need the phone immediately, the signals are enough. Now listen, Dart, I backed you up on that timbering job you were worried about, but if you’re going to come running to me with every little thing...”
“I don’t, sir.” Dart drew himself up and gazed stonily out of the window, “but the generator failed last week, and the signals didn’t get through. The men are blasting right near the shaft, it’s close timing.”
Tyson checked a sharp rejoinder. Irritation born of guilt jabbed down to the bedrock of fairness which still lay beneath. His hand dropped to his lap. “I’ll speak to Mablett,” he said after a moment, and then he smiled the warm smile. “Cheer up, young ’un, the troubles of the world aren’t all on your shoulders!”
Dart plodded back up the canyon to the mine. He was unused to moods of discouragement or depression, and while he breathed deep of the hot shimmering air, drawing from it the comfort that any contact with nature always gave him, he tried to detach his emotions from the situation and appraise it. Tyson was largely ineffectual, but he was still the boss, and despite his ill health and semi-withdrawal from the mine he still commanded respect. There was nothing to do at present but wait for the inevitable change of one sort or another which life always provided. Once identified with a course which seemed right to him, patience and endurance were as instinctive with Dart as the necessity for determined action when his sense of justice was outraged.
He could accept the defeat of his own plan this morning and be content with victory in the matter of the telephone cable, which, no matter how trivial it appeared to Mr. Tyson who had lost contact with the underground world, or to Mablett whose bullheaded economies and lack of imagination made him take the wrong chances, Dart knew to be of immediate importance. In mine management as in other enterprises, it was the little things that counted, and eternal vigilance was the price of success in an operation so constantly exposed to dangers.
Dart reached the collar at the shaft and waited for the cage in a renewed mood of acceptance. Why then should there be an element of foreboding which no amount of common sense quite dissipated? Somewhere impounded in the deepest recess of his mind there was a fluttering of unease, a quiver of warning. During the rest of that day he inspected every foot of the active mine with doubled concentration, but the compressors and ventilators, the drills, the pumps, the ore trains, the electric power—all the complicated machinery for extracting ore from the reluctant earth were functioning with exemplary smoothness. In the afternoon on the swing shift he even mentioned his disquiet to his friend Tom Rubrick, who laughed at him.
“Gor-blimey, Mr. Dartland, that I should see the day you’d be getting sendings and queasies! Why me Cousin Jacks ain’t even ’eard the Tommyknockers of late. Ye work too ’ard, that’s wot it is. There ain’t nothing wronger with this mine than normal. Ye shouldna fret.”
Dart laughed too. He and the shift boss went off to do a little sampling near the No. 74 stope.
All that morning Amanda lay on her bed, wilted by the heat, and the state of her stomach. By noon the nausea had passed and she dragged herself up, washed her face and dressed in a loose, brown cotton smock bought at the General Store. Her figure had not thickened much yet, and she might still have squeezed into one of her other dresses, but the smock was cooler. She combed her hair which clung lankly to her head and powdered her nose, giving an indifferent glance in the mirror. She killed a scorpion and two stinkbugs with the same stony indifference. There was no keeping them out of the house in summertime. One got used to things, she thought, even bugs, even heat. But underneath her indifference there lay purpose. She was going to see Hugh.
She extracted the envelope with the material on the lost mine from her dressing case where it had lain so long undisturbed and walked outside. A hot dry little wind blew in fitful puffs raising dust-devils on the road. The desert which had been so brilliant three months ago had now flattened to a duncolored monochrome. The giant saguaro on the corner had shrunk into sharp folds, patiently enduring until the rains should fatten it again. Amanda choked on the dust and walked as fast as she could to the Company hospital, praying that Hugh was sober and in a reasonably good mood. She found that he was both, but that it was office hours and the dingy, stifling waiting room was full of patients.
Hugh stuck his head out when he saw her and said, “Sit down, Andy, you’ll have to wait.”
She sat down on the wicker bench squeezed next to a fat old Mexican woman with sore eyes—and a smell. The woman greeted Amanda with a toothy smile, and pointed at her capacious belly. “I got pains—” she whined. “Mebbe I eat too much chili. You think Doc fix?”
“I’m sure he will,” said Amanda, drawing as far away as she could. Now that she had made up her mind to consult Hugh, this delay exasperated her. And none of them looked very sick, she thought impatiently. A miner with a bandaged hand. A little boy with ringworm crusts on his head. A blowsy blonde in maroon silk who sat in the far corner on an up-ended packing case, one of Big Ruby’s girls doubtless come in for monthly inspection.
It would take an hour to get through them all, thought Amanda, and there was nothing to read. She sat and tapped her foot. She thought of the last doctor’s waiting room she had sat in. Two years ago, accompanied by her mother who was always so anxious over any of Amanda’s slightest ailments. It must have been a cold she had had, because the doctor was a Park Avenue nose and throat specialist. She remembered the waiting room hung in gold brocades, with a moss-colored rug, all the latest Vogues and Vanity Fairs and New Yorkers on the inlaid central table. She remembered the two soft-voiced smiling nurses, the efficient secretary, the four gleaming white cubicles for the use of the specialist and his assistants. There had been an atmosphere of reassurance and smooth, charming warmth.
And did I ever think poverty was romantic? Why shouldn’t we cushion ugliness and pain if we can? If we can. Her hand clenched on the envelope until it crackled.
The last patient left at four, it was the blonde crib girl, and as she stumbled out her slack mouth had dropped open like a gasping fish, tears streaked mascara runnels down her cheeks.
“What’s the matter with her?” whispered Amanda as she walked into Hugh’s office.
“Lump in her breast,” said Hugh curtly. “And no doubt what it is, either. She’s let it go too long.”
Amanda exhaled her breath, staring at his square emotionless face. “Oh, Hugh, how dreadful. Did you tell her...?”
“Of course I told her. She’ll have to go to Tucson at once for amputation if she wants a whack at a thousand to one chance of recovery. But it’s hardly worth-while.”
“Would she have the money for an operation?” asked Amanda slowly.
Hugh shrugged. “Probably not. Now what may I do for you today?”
She looked down at the envelope in her hand. “Hugh, you’re so heartless, so callous....I don’t know. I’m sorry I came. I wanted to ask your advice about something but you’d sneer....”
Hugh leaned back and crossed his legs. “Okay so I’d sneer. I haven’t had a really good sneer for ages. What is it, brand-new symptom?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.” She fingered the envelope uncertainly. Too precious, too beautiful a dream, and she had no right——
“Ah, I’ve got it,” Hugh cried. “Dart’s been writing love letters to another woman, and you’ve snitched one!”
The swift angry color ran up her face. “How dare you!” she cried. “Dart would never do a thing like that!”
Hugh burst into a roar of laughter. “How dare I! How pat the language of hick melodrama flies to the lips of outraged vanity. Do you think you’re the only one who can indulge in a little playful adultery on the side?”
“I didn’t,” she cried momentarily too stunned for anger. “That isn’t fair—you don’t understand about that trip.” She got up, putting the letter in the pocket of her smock. “I don’t know why I was such a fool as to think I could turn to you.” Her voice trembled, and helpless angry tears blinded her. She started towards the door.
“Oh, Jesus—” said Hugh. “Women, tears. My misplaced humor. Sit down, and get it off your chest.” He pushed her back into the chair and took the envelope from her pocket.
“No—don’t—” she faltered, but she stopped her protest watching him as he read the inscription. “Notes on the Lost Gold Mine, ‘Pueblo Encantado,’ copied from those made by Dart’s father Prof. Jonathan Dartland.”
She waited for his mocking laughter, but the face he raised to hers was blankly astonished. “What in the world...” he said, “what in the world have you got here?’’
The mildness of his words decided her. “Well, read it,” she leaned back in her chair. “Read it aloud, will you? I’d like to get a fresh impression.”
Hugh glanced at her, then began to read in his harsh, clipped voice the Professor’s cautious preamble.
“There exists here in this southwestern land an inordinate amount of myths and legends referring to so-called ‘Lost Mines’ and buried treasure. I believe the majority of these ‘lost mines’ to be as illusory and illusive as the various forms of ignis fatuus—(the will-o’-the-wisp, Jack o’lights or foxfire) which are popularly supposed to guide the gold seeker to their exact location.”
Hugh continued reading through the adventures of the two Franciscan missionaries, and Amanda could tell nothing from his face, but his voice slowed gradually, and dropped lower. He read the sentences, “The next morning they investigated the cliff dwellings which ... seems to have inspired both men with a great and strange fear. They reported that it glowed in the night ‘Like an enchantment.’ They persisted however, and holding their crucifixes in front of them they explored the dead city and the reaches of the cave behind it. Here there were corpses (‘Los Muertos’—probably mummies), and here also at the back of the cave they were stunned to see a wall of glittering gold.”
Hugh stopped. His lips were tight-compressed beneath the short mustache. She watched him puzzled, for he got up, strode to the door, opened it sharply and peered outside. He then slammed it shut. So steeled was she for his derision that she did not understand this action.
“Maria,” he explained. “Supposed to be upstairs with the patients but one never knows. I think I better read the rest to myself.”
He’s taking it seriously, she thought in amazement so great that it left no room for triumph.
Silence fell over the little office except for the flick of turning pages and the sound of Hugh’s breathing. He finished the notes, examined her tracing of the copper map, and then read the notes again. His green eyes held an expression of intense, painful concentration, more than that, she thought, suddenly a little frightened. His eyes were like those she remembered in a painting of Savonarola—fanatical—then the burning light was veiled. He looked at her intently, with utmost seriousness he said, “Why did you bring me this? Does Dart know?"
She shook her head. “He doesn’t believe in the mine. The whole thing makes him angry. We’ve had quarrels about it.”
“But you’ve talked about it. What did he tell you?”
She thought back trying to remember Dart’s exact words. “He said the place, the enchanted canyon, was a legend in his grandfather Tanosay’s tribe. That the Indians were afraid of it, it’s sort of taboo.”
“Then he believes the place exists?”
She nodded. “He admitted that, said the details in the notes correspond to Coyotero tradition.”
Hugh leaned forward, eyes narrowed watching her. “Why did you bring this to me?” he repeated, this time in a harsh whisper that dismayed her still more.
“Because you are the only one I could talk to, Dart won’t. But I thought you’d laugh ... I didn’t think you’d-” Why had she come? Was it an obscure wish to hurt Dart? Had she after all half hoped that Hugh would laugh, that his caustic materialism would free her from the obsession? She had not bargained for this terrifying change in him, for the tenseness that galvanized his body, for the danger which she felt flowing across the littered desk.
She rose attempting to laugh. “But Dart’s right, of course, it’s just a lot of nonsense, just a fairy tale—” she said quickly, and she stretched her hand out for the envelope.
“Oh, no you don’t, my lady.” He put the envelope in his pocket. “I’d like to study this some more. I find it fascinating.”
She sank down again, moistening her lips. “Hugh—” she said, “Hugh, that doesn’t belong to you, it’s Dart’s. You can’t keep it.—What have you got in your mind...?”
Her hands clenched on a fold of her smock, her heart pounded as he sat silent staring at her. “You’ve no right, give it back to me—” She heard her voice rising high and hysterical, and she controlled herself. That wasn’t the way with Hugh. Instinct helped her. “It’s Dart’s,” she said quietly. “He’s your friend.”
Hugh’s eyes flickered and slid away from her white face. “This sudden tender loyalty moves me deeply,” he said through his teeth. “And I repeat again, then why did you bring this to me?”
She made a choked sound, and her body slumped. “Oh, I don’t know, except we need money so desperately—I thought, I don’t know what I thought.”
“You thought I’d go searching for the gold, and bring it all back and dump it in your lap? You little damn fool.”
She leaned back in her chair, her eyelids drooped, and she listened to the echo of Hugh’s words in full agreement, but her panic had passed and she found herself possessed of calm.
“I suppose you can steal the envelope if you want to,” she said. “And you can go off searching for the mine, too, but you’ll never find it. Not without Dart. There’s not enough facts there for one thing, and for another you don’t understand this country any better than I do. You couldn’t cope with the wilderness.”
He looked at her with grudging respect. The frenzy of desire which had leapt at him while he read now receded a little, it withdrew to a subterranean den where it crouched growling and watchful, but the dispassionate master in his mind regained control.
“Then Dart must go,” he said. And he went on in her own previous words, “The Mazatzals aren’t so far. If Dart knows where the place is it wouldn’t take us long.”
“I know,” she said. “But Dart won’t go. At least, not for me.”
“I’ll talk to him,” said Hugh.
She sighed and did not answer. Was this not the desired result of her impulse to tell Hugh? Was not his belief in the mine, and co-operation, the reaction she had longed for? Yes, but not like this. Not tarnished by the ugly thing that had been in the room with them for a little while. The Pueblo Encantado, the bright beckoning flower had indeed shriveled but not under his scorn, under the far more scorching and dangerous blast of greed. She had unleashed a force far bigger than she had expected, one that she could not control. But Dart could. He would be angry with her, and justly, but he would deal with Hugh, and Hugh would listen, because the only redeeming feature that she was sure of in his character was his attachment to Dart.
She dragged herself up from the chair. She was exhausted, drained and no longer knew what she wanted, except rest. Her head ached again, and she thought with yearning of her mother. Somebody to soothe, somebody to wave a magic wand and make things right. Darling, I’ll help you of course, what does my baby want? Whatever it is I’ll get it for her. Had her father or mother said those words once long ago? One of them had. Had this been what she had hoped Hugh would say? Poor little damn fool, indeed.
“I’m going home now,” she said faintly. “I don’t care what you do about the envelope.”
“No,” he said, not moving. “You don’t carry through very well on your impulses, do you? When you find things don’t go as you planned exactly you give up.”
She did not answer. She stumbled out back into the heat and glare of the August afternoon.
Hugh sat on at his desk. He took the envelope from his pocket and spread the notes and map out in front of him. He got up and locked the office door. He looked at the cupboard where he kept a gallon tin of grain alcohol, but for the first time in years the idea of a drink did not appeal to him. After a while he took the photograph of Viola from his inner breast pocket. “Whistle and you’ll come to me, my lad,” he said out loud. “Come bearing gifts like the Greeks. Come as my prince, my Emperor, that I may see how wrong I was twelve years ago.”
He smiled to himself, he put the picture and the envelope back together in his breast pocket. He crossed his legs and lit a cigarette, considering with all the coolness and intelligence at his command the best way to conduct his interview with Dart. For Amanda, so childish and uncertain about many things, was right in this: Dart’s help and knowledge was, at least so far, essential.